Going to the movies with friends from the intelligence community is never a cheerful experience. Spending two hours in a conspiracy movie with people who sometimes while seeing a (seemingly) absurdly powerful data collection device say “ah, I know this system”, will make you a firm believer in conspiracy theories or at least a more paranoid individual. But even the most tech savvy and well informed of those people talk like Pres. Obama in that quote above – it’s not lack of data, it’s our inability to process it that limits us. Maybe project ECHELON really stores all of our communication – but what super computer and what sophisticated algorithms can process and identify all of the world’s pictures, plethora of dialects in written natural languages and voice calls? You know what? If you know the answer, I’m not sure I want to know.
